Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Prime Minister. Does the Prime Minister regret administering an illegal robodebt scheme, a fact that was revealed in an answer to a question on notice in the Senate today by the Australian Taxation Office?

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the House would know, on the morning 19 November last year the government announced a further refinement of the income compliance program. This is part of the ongoing commitment to continually strengthen and improve the scheme. The program has already a undergone a number of iterations and refinements since its inception under Labor in 2011. In response to community feedback, these changes will make the program more robust by requiring additional evidence when using information to identify—

Hon. Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister will resume his seat for a second. Members on both sides. The Leader of the Opposition on a point of order.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It goes to relevance. This wasn't a refinement. It wasn't due to community feedback. It was against the law—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. That was a statement, not a point of order, but I'm going to take it as a point of order on relevance.

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

These changes are designed to make the program more robust by requiring additional evidence when using income information to identify potential overpayments.

As stated in November last year, this means we'll no longer raise a debt where the only information we're relying on is the averaging of ATO income. For those debts raised to date, the statement was made that Services Australia will be carefully and methodically working to identify those customers whose debts may have been calculated using apportioned ATO PAYG employment income data. It is complex to do that. It's a highly manual process. It's not appropriate to pre-empt the outcome of this process. We'll advise the House in the future when that process comes to its conclusion.